British Airways boss ‘tries to gag staff’ over IT failure which hit 300,000 passengers after ‘inexperienced staff outsourced to India didn’t know to launch back up system’
The airline's check-in and operational systems crashed on Saturday and saw thousands of passengers trying to travel on Bank Holiday weekend left stranded
THE British Airways boss is alleged to have tried to "gag staff" over the IT meltdown which hit 300,000 passengers - as inexperienced staff in India didn't know how to launch the back up system, it has been claimed.
The airline's check-in and operational systems crashed on Saturday and saw thousands of people trying to travel on Bank Holiday weekend left stranded.
And boss Alex Cruz has been blamed for the disaster, but it is now claimed he tried to stop staff talking about the problems experienced after outsourcing staff to India.
In an email to staff he wrote: "Guys, either you are part of the team working to fix this or you aren’t. We are not in the mode of ‘debriefing on what happened’ but rather ‘let’s fix this mode’."
Adding: "In the meantime, if you do not want to get involved or cannot get involved, I would kindly ask you to refrain from live commentary, unless it is a message of support to the thousands of colleagues that love BA as much as you do."
Yesterday passengers were pictured sleeping rough at Heathrow and Gatwick Airports and queuing outside in their thousands - with the airline's "inexperienced" boss now getting the blame.
The chief executive, who founded budget carrier Clickair and ran airline Vueling before moving to work for British Airways in 2016, has been accused of replacing British IT professionals with cheap overseas workers since taking the role.
And GMB union bosses say that this move may have led to this weekend's chaos - a whistle-blower even claimed bosses knew about the "dodgy" systems.
"I don't feel he has the depth of knowledge required to inject radical competitive new thinking into the up-market British Airways brand.
"Cruz is known as being an outsourcer and cost-cutter, stripping out frills and cutting head count, and therefore not particularly suited to an upmarket, people-intensive, luxury-price brand."
Distraught passengers were reportedly told they wouldn't be refunded after the massive IT meltdown.
Flights at Gatwick were expected to be normal throughout the day, with Heathrow suffering from only minor delays.
However experts are warning that travellers are facing a huge "knock-on effect".
Air industry consultant John Strickland said: "Customers and from the airline's point of view - manpower, dealing with the backlog of aircraft out of position, parking spaces for the aircraft - it's a challenge and a choreographic nightmare."
Departure boards this morning showed flights departing from Gatwick early on Sunday, however several flights from Heathrow were cancelled.
A Heathrow spokesman said yesterday "delays and cancellations of British Airways flights are expected today", while the airline said there would be "some knock-on disruption to our schedules on Sunday, as aircraft and crews are out of position around the world".
Musician Charles Trippy, bassist with US rock band We The Kings, complained to BA via Twitter that his instrument was missing.
The band are on the bill at the Slam Dunk Music Festival, which has shows in Leeds on Sunday and Hatfield on Monday.
Trippy tweeted: "Dear @British_Airways please find my bass. It's getting frustrating that you don't know where it is. I kinda need it for work.
"No big deal".
Delays were also reported in the US, Rome, Prague, Milan, Stockholm and Malaga.
The log-jam also hit passengers landing as they had nowhere to disembark.
Amid the "carnage" ground staff resorted to scrawling messages for pilots on pieces of paper.
A man who was caught up in the delays at Heathrow airport yesterday said the airline had lost his and dozens of other passengers' bags by the time his flight landed.
Terry Page, 28, from London, flew from Terminal 5 to Fort Worth, Texas.
On arrival he and "about 50" others were eventually told that BA did not know where the bags were, and were told they were hoping they would receive them on Monday.
"They said nothing," he claimed. "I saw everyone else filling out forms and I asked what it was about.
"It's affected so many people. Some 80-year-old lady was standing around waiting for announcements, et cetera - and she fell over," he said.
"We helped her up and she said 'I'm just so tired'.
"It's been a terrible, terrible day'" Mr Page added.
"Strangely we were the last flight to leave the airport and there were 15 unclaimed bags lying around," he said.
"There was a lady with her baby stranded, it was awful."
As a result of the mayhem, queues formed inside and outside airport buildings yesterday, one of the hottest days of the year so far in the UK.
Despite initial reports from passengers that the disruptions had been caused by a cyber attack, BA has said that a "power supply issue" was most likely behind the global IT failure.
Chief executive Alex Cruz said: "We believe the root cause was a power supply issue and we have no evidence of any cyber attack."
In a statement, BA said: "We have experienced a major IT system failure that is causing very severe disruption to our flight operations worldwide.
"The terminals at Heathrow and Gatwick have become extremely congested and we have cancelled all flights from Heathrow and Gatwick before 6pm UK time today, so please do not come to the airports."
Several customers complained of "disgraceful" customer service from BA staff, who gave out little information while others said the IT outage had caused "carnage" at airports.
As well as Gatwick and Heathrow, BA fliers have found themselves stuck in the USA, France, Northern Ireland, Portgual and Italy.
Staff had 'no idea' how to handle it
STRANDED passengers have claimed British Airways had no idea how to handle the chaos, writes Jacob Dirnhuber.
Gary Smith, 44, from Sidcup, South East London, was due to fly from Heathrow to New York with his kids, eight and 11, and wife Emma for her 40th birthday.
He said: “The BA staff were hiding, we couldn’t get a straight answer out of anyone.
“We learned that our flight was cancelled from Sky News, not the staff. BA haven’t dealt with it at all, they’ve got no clue.
“The communication has been terrible all day.”
Ben Smith, 38, was due to fly from Heathrow to Minorca for a family holiday. He said: “We spoke to five people and got five separate stories.
“It doesn’t seem like the staff know what they’re doing. We usually go on cruises. This is why.”
Londoner Terry Page, 28, was due to fly to Texas but was stuck in a queue at Heathrow’s Terminal 5 for two hours.
He claimed BA made “no announcements at all” and said: “We had to rely on the whisperings I could overhear from staff.”
Alma Saffari was stuck in Marseilles with her 13-month-old baby trying to return to Heathrow.
She sat on a plane for 90 minutes before the captain said the systems were down, but said she was given a voucher for food and drink.
Traveller Soundron Vraty told The Sun Online she had travelled from India to London, on her way to start studying in Montreal.
But she was stuck at Heathrow airport, with her connecting flight to Canada cancelled.
She said: "We were told that the flights were cancelled because of a problem with the computers.
"We're trying to find my baggage and then hopefully will find out when the flight will be rescheduled to - we don't know if it will be today or tomorrow."
The young student said her flight had been supposed to take off at 5.30pm, adding: "Everybody is now pushing everybody else and trying to find a solution.
"We haven't been told anything."
Have you been affected by British Airways' computer problems? Contact The Sun Online's news team by emailing tips@the-sun.co.uk or call us on 0207 782 4368
Philip Bloom tweeted: "Stuck on a British Airways plane at Belfast, going nowhere. 'BA computers down worldwide', whatever that means!"
Another customer, Tom Beckett, said he was stuck in Kiev and made jabbed the airline for its recent decision to scrap free food and drink from their flights.
He wrote: "Dear British Airways, perhaps it's time to reinvest all that money you aren't spending on tea and sandwiches on technology."
The GMB union said it all could have been avoided if "greedy" bosses hadn't outsourced IT work to India.
The travel chaos only adds to the disruption at Gatwick yesterday which saw families flying off for half-term holidays without their luggage.
The airport's baggage handling system broke down meaning 3,000 bags were not loaded onto the flights they were supposed to be.
The conveyor belt machines stopped working at around 5am and did not start again until 9.15am.
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